The Triumphant Life of Theodore Roosevelt edited by J. Martin Miller

176 THE PRESIDENT STARTS ON HIS TRIP
substantial good will be done in the immediate future ; and
as the Department
gets fairly to work under the law an ever larger vista for good work will be opened
along the lines indicated. The enactment of this law is one of the most significant
contributions which have been made in our time toward the proper solution of the
problem of the relations to the people of the great corporate combinations.
But much though this is, it is only a part of what has been done in the efifort
to ascertain and correct improper trust or monopolistic practices. Some eighteen
months ago the Industrial Commission, an able and non-partisan body, reported
to Congfress the result of their investigations. One of the most important of their
conclusions was that discriminations in freight rates and facilities were granted
favored shippers by the railroads and that these discriminations clearly tended
toward the control of production and prices in many fields of business by large
combinations.
UNLAWTXTL AGREEMENTS ENTERED INTO
That this conclusion was justifiable was shown by the disclosures in the
investigation of railroad methods pursued in the fall and winter of igoi-1902. It
v,-as then shown that certain trunk lines had entered into unlawful agreements as to
the transportation of food products from the West to the Atlantic seaboard, giving
a few favored shippers rates much below the tariflf charges imposed upon the
smaller dealers and the general public. These unjust practices had prevailed to
such an extent and for so long a time that many of the smaller shippers had been
driven out of business, until practically one buyer of grain on each railway system
had been able by his illegal advantages to secure a monopoly on the line with
which his secret compact was made ; this monopoly enabling him to fix the price
to both producer and consumer. Many of the great packing-house concerns
were shown to be in combination with each other and with most of the great
railway lines, whereby they enjoyed large secret concessions in rates and thus
obtained a practical monopoly of the fresh and cured-meat industry of the country'.
These fusions, though violative of the statute, had prevailed unchecked for so
many years that they had become intrenched in and interwoven with the commercial
life of certain large distributing localities, although this was of course at the
expense of the vast body of law-abiding merchants, the general public, and
particularly of unfavored localities.
THE WISE COURSE TO FOLLOW
Under those circumstances it was a serious problem to determine the wise
course to follow in vitalizing a law which had in part 'become obsolete or proved
incapable of enforcement. Of what the Attornej' -General did in enforcing it I
shall speak later. The decisions of the courts upon the law had betrayed